St Vitus Cathedral
The heart and high point of the complex: 20th-century stained glass including a window designed by Alphonse Mucha, and the silver tomb of St John of Nepomuk.
Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · donald judge — CC BY 2.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0
Three unhurried hours cover the standard ticket. Add the gardens, the Lobkowicz museum and the walk down to the Lesser Town and it becomes a comfortable half day.
You can buy online or at the windows in the second courtyard. The real queue is not for tickets but for the cathedral door, and it shrinks noticeably before 10am or after 3pm.
The courtyards are flat and easy, but the Golden Lane and the tower passage are narrow with steep steps. Leave the stroller at the lane entrance and use a carrier.
Early morning for the cathedral façade, sunset from the South Gardens when the roofs turn fully orange. The picture of the castle itself, though, is taken from the far bank — Charles Bridge or Letná park.
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Prague Castle is not one castle but a small city on a hill: a vast Gothic cathedral, royal palaces, a lane of tiny craftsmen's houses, Romanesque churches and gardens stepping down towards the river. Spread over some seven hectares, it counts among the largest castle complexes in the world. It began as a wooden fort in the 9th century, and because every ruler rebuilt a piece of it, the compound now reads as a thousand years of Czech architecture assembled in one place. The president of the republic works here today; the kings of Bohemia were crowned here; and here, in 1618, Protestant nobles threw two imperial officials out of a window of the Old Royal Palace — the Defenestration that set off the Thirty Years War. Walking the three courtyards costs nothing; a ticket is needed only for the interiors: St Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St George's Basilica and the Golden Lane. The smart approach is tram 22 up to the Pražský hrad stop, then walking down into the Lesser Town rather than the other way round: the whole route is downhill and it ends at Charles Bridge instead of starting with a breathless climb. Arrive before 10am — the tour groups fill the courtyards shortly after.
The heart and high point of the complex: 20th-century stained glass including a window designed by Alphonse Mucha, and the silver tomb of St John of Nepomuk.
A row of tiny coloured houses built into the castle wall; Franz Kafka worked in one of them for a short spell in 1917.
A late-Gothic hall with a rippling ribbed vault, once wide enough for knights to ride into on horseback — one of central Europe's finest interiors.
A long terrace running the length of the castle front, looking over Prague's red roofs — open in the warm season, and free.
Hradčany, Prague 1